Dilutable cleaners are often oil-in-water microemulsion compositions which transform from clear, translucent liquids to milky white or milky yellowish white, cloudy (opaque) solutions upon dilution with sufficient water. This phenomenon is referred to in the art as “bloom” or “blooming” or “break” and is most commonly the result of the microemulsion “breaking” and the subsequent formation of a macroemulsion. Blooming is a property exhibited by dilutable compositions such as known cleaning compositions, for example pine oil type cleaning compositions which contain a significant amount (generally at least about 5% and more) of pine oil comprised of a significant proportion of terpene alcohols. Blooming is an important characteristic from a consumer standpoint as it provides a visual indicator and impression to the consumer that the concentrated product contains active cleaning and/or disinfecting constituents which are released upon addition of the concentrate to a volume of water. Such is an important visual indicator of apparent efficacy of a concentrated product.
While presently commercially available materials have advantageous features, they are not without their attendant shortcomings as well. Blooming dilutable cleaners based on natural oils are well known. The majority of these are based on natural oils such as pine oil. Pine oil is used because of its biocidal properties, its odor profile, its grease solubilizing properties, its relative ease in formulating a stable blooming product, and its blooming characteristics when a properly formulated product is diluted with water. Despite these advantages, the use of pine oil with its characteristically pungent odor is frequently not desired. A further disadvantage of pine oil is that if significant amounts of pine oil are present in a blooming composition, the cleaner may deposit an undesirable sticky residue on hard surfaces.
To satisfy these consumer demands for an effective blooming cleaning composition, other natural oils with alternative odor profiles have been considered in blooming dilutable cleaners. Unfortunately, many of these natural oils are more difficult to incorporate in a stable composition which also has a blooming property. U.S. Pat. No. 6,194,362 discloses glass cleaning compositions containing blooming perfume wherein the perfume composition comprises at least 5 different blooming perfume ingredients presumably to achieve adequate bloom. Orange oil for instance has a very fresh and clean aroma which is quite appealing for use in cleaning products, but orange oil is generally more challenging to efficiently incorporate into a blooming household cleaning product. As a solution to the problem of incorporating orange oil into a blooming cleaning composition, others have sought to combine the orange oil with pine oil to achieve a stable and clear formulation which also has a blooming property. The following is a partial list of patents which require the inclusion of pine oil: U.S. Pat. No. 6,465,411, U.S. Pat. No. 6,110,295, U.S. Pat. No. 6,075,002, U.S. Pat. No. 6,030,936, U.S. Pat. No. 6,100,231, U.S. Pat. No. 5,985,819, U.S. Pat. No. 5,728,672, U.S. Pat. No. 5,629,280U.S. Pat. No. 5,591,708, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,414,128. However, the combination of even relatively small amounts of pine oil in orange oil cleaning compositions presents a problem in that some consumers find the odor profile of pine oil—even at these minimum levels—to be too harsh or generally unappealing.
A product that blooms well (quickly and in a visually pronounced fashion) is often perceived by consumers as being a more effective cleaner than a product that blooms poorly. For the bloom phenomena to occur during consumer use, the cleaning products must be physically stable as a clear liquid prior to use while in the concentrated form before dilution. Surfactants are the primary agents used to emulsify an oil, but often other ingredients are required to provide the adequate product stability and clarity in a blooming dilutable cleaner. Typically, to maintain the translucency of a formulation, organic solvents or other coupling agents are often used to physically stabilize the natural oil in a microemulsion. However, these organic solvents add very little to the cleaning efficacy of a dilutable cleaner. Such organic solvents in blooming cleaning compositions typically include alkyl phenyl and alkyl diphenyl solvents. These organic solvents often contribute an unwanted solvent odor to the finished product, and they are often viewed as environmental unfriendly. In fact, the use of some organic solvents in household cleaning products is limited by some regulating bodies in conjunction with efforts to protect the environment. Examples include the following patent—U.S. Pat. No. 6,184,195, U.S. Pat. No. 6,177,388, U.S. Pat. No. 6,143,703, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,395,697—which disclose blooming cleaning formulas incorporating natural oils which require, among other ingredients, an alkyl diphenyl solvent presumably to achieve adequate formula stability. Alkyl diphenyl solvents are representative of organic solvents which biodegrade more slowly than non-aromatic solvents and therefore are not the environmentally preferred as a stabilizing or clarifying agent in blooming cleaning compositions.
Other attempts to produce a blooming cleaning composition have incorporated specialty, higher cost surfactants to enhance the bloom effect. U.S. Pat. No. 6,066,606 discloses a blooming type cleaning composition which requires a bloom enhancing effective amount of at least one amphoteric surfactant. U.S. Pat. No. 6,140,284 discloses botanical oils as blooming agents in hard surface cleaning compositions which require at least one botanical oil solubilizing surfactant selected from amine oxide surfactants. However, amine oxides are inferior emulsifiers for this application as demonstrated by the examples provided in the patent. Each formulation included in Table 1 of U.S. Pat. No. 6,140,284 incorporates 8 percent natural oil and 33 percent of stabilizing and clarifying agents (12 percent isopropyl alcohol, 20 percent propylene glycol, 1 percent lauryl alcohol).
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a blooming concentrated cleaner capable of dilution for use as an all purpose cleaner.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a blooming cleaner that forms a milky bloom upon dilution with an appropriate amount of water at consumer relevant water hardness levels.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a blooming cleaner which avoids the use of cost-ineffective ingredients such as amine oxides, amphoteric surfactants, and alkyl diphenyl solvents.
It is a further objective of the present invention to provide a blooming cleaner which avoids the unnecessary use of large amount of non-cleaning functional (in a dilutable application) ingredients such as organic solvents.
It is still a further object of the present of the invention to provide a blooming cleaner which is phase stable and translucent—while in the undiluted form—under consumer relevant temperature conditions.